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Forums and Forum Reviews. Serving the Hobby or Harming It?


Ar9Jim

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Working for Bob is great. Dealing with clowns on the internet is not.

 

As you may have noticed, most of the legendary designers in this industry have been under attack in the measurement based forums. Bascom King, John Curl, Bob Carver and others.. 

 

The measurement site boys try and play gotcha somehow, as if everyone is a liar but them, claiming some sort of holy than thou mind game, with their groupies on their heels.

 

The latest is a guy who works for Bottlehead Amps who makes $2000 kit amps that make 8 watts, posting on a site that our 350 watt amps make 8 watts at 1Kh.. That company has a disclaimer saying, since it is a kit, they are not responsible for their 8 watt claim or the amps performance. 

 

Needless to say, I was little irritated that someone would get measurements so far from actual, and actually post this deception on-line. 

 

Anyone can say anything they want to damage a company. Then others on-line expect companies to waste time and resources responding to their post.

 

To me, saying an amp that makes 357 watts RMS at 1k  and saying it makes 8 watts is basically a liar. His groupies say my character is questionable due to the 275 and those issues. They believe his results and don't understand my being defensive. 

 

It's all good. I'll avoid those forums. People can claim whatever they want, with products of unknown condition that are sent in off the street, and attack companies. Unfortunately people read their garbage.

 

Like in the latest attack from a bozo who works for another tube amp company. Nice. Lets all play the same game, and cut each others throats, shale we? How's the hobby then? Everyone can listen to a Topping because it measures best on ASR.. 

 

I probably shouldn't post while angry, but after a couple days of it, I need to vent..  

 

Life is too short to chase jerks around the internet ,and act subservient to their BS and judgement of my attitude.. Their damn right I got an attitude. We are building the best Carver products possible from excellent designs that Bob has created. We are a start-up, of a handful of people working hard to get the legacy right. 

When you are Bob Carver, the little tiny men will take cheap shots at the biggest guy in the room.

 

Bobs told me "this is just someone trying to make a name for themselves, taking shots at Bob Carver, Its been this way all my life."

 

After finding out this bozo works for a tube amp company, his motive is clear and Bob was 100% correct. 

 

If someone wants to buy a Carver, they can try it in their system at home, risk free, against the competition for a month. This the most honest way in the world to sell equipment and stay above this internet full of trash posting people, acting as if they are righteous and helping the consumer. 

 

Americans are missing out on some great products. Look at the Munich hi fi show. I have asked company reps, why don't you sell in the USA?  Answer: They sue too much..  Pass Labs sells the majority of their products outside the USA.. All new Bob Carver products will meet CE and world standards for export. There is a reason Bob Carver is world famous and the hacks are, who? People with fake names hiding behind their computer, throwing stones at the legends of the hobby to pump their fragile ego..  Sign of the times I suppose.  

 

If an amp company won't let you try the product, without a restock fee, that should tell people more than any internet hacks review. 

 

Keep it Fun. Enjoy the music!

 

Jim Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ar9Jim
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  If you want to get out in front of these clowns with future or current products post your own measurements. I've watched Bill Flannery test several Sunfire amps right in front of me for power output per channel and distortion they always exceeded the factory rating. Back when I was into car audio MTX power amplifiers came with a hand written test sheet with actual measurements from each amp seems easy enough each amp is tested for quality anyway right?

 

 

 

mtxspec.jpg

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We will with new products. Its a standard procedure to document the inspection results by s/n and keep them on record.  

 

The 350s are each tested in California and signed inside by the builder. 

 

People on-line can still say anything they want, for any motive they have. ASR can test a vintage M1.5 and say it doesn't meet specs as though it never did, and claim a gotcha and some sort of moral authority to judge, based on a disclaimer of "I just test what people send me."  Same as the latest bozo. Good for the hobby?  I don't think so, imho.. Science with no control of the sample? Is there is such a thing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jim,

 

I found it to be suspicious that the guy running the Bob-bashing site promotes his friend who makes tube amps. It was after reading every single page of that thread that I reached out to you to purchase the 275 a few months ago.

 

We spent a few hours listening to CDs through the 275 today. Sunfire TGIV restored by Flannery.  Paradigm 9seMk3 speakers. Marantz CD-6000ose. We don't have hardware to measure readings, but we do have ears. And our ears told us it's the best sounding system we've ever heard. 

 

Chris

 

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@Ar9Jim Jim,

I agree with @ChrisTFM35 (son)!! We have played CD, cassette, and vinyl, with the system described above. With the 275 as the center of focus it is a very enjoyable experience. Not only does it sound great, it is also a work of art. 

 

image.thumb.jpeg.5b57a9cc55ec92620bee2a2295a633bf.jpeg

Edited by BobTFM35
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys. People that actually drive loudspeakers with our products and talk about it on-line is important. The resistor running crowd has been on quite a mission to discredit the great designers of the industry, with resistor running contest.

 

I try not to bother Bob with this internet 'stuff'. He has never played by anyones rules and has generated controversy all his life. I'm here to take some load off, and let him practice his beloved craft of designing great sounding gear at decent prices for everyones benefit. He has a gift. Do I want to disturb him from what he loves, to respond to critiques at 80 year old?  I can't do it. His time is more precious than any damage these hacks can do to his reputation. 

 

Every minute I get to spend talking with Bob is golden. I'm not going into the internet BS with Bob, as much as these people would like to distract us from our mission with their attacks. Let Bob play and enjoy being in the zone. We will all hear the results.  

 

When the 275 attacks started, I got Bob involved and he responded with a true statement about Amirs test not representing the sound engineering and design of the amplifier, and that he stood by his product by offering returns if someone didn't like the sound of his amplifier. We let that run for over 30 days. We had a handful of returns. Of those returns, the majority later expressed regret, when trying competing products in the price range. 

 

Did the ASR review serve the consumer well? No. Did it damage our 275 sales, Yes it did.

 

Bob made some comments to me at that time.

 

1. When talking about load resister test Bob said, "I haven't designed amplifiers that way in over 20-25 years". Harry Pearson started that in his magazine the Absolute Sound long, long ago".

 

2. "Designing amplifiers to run resistors, and designing amplifiers to sound good, are not necessarily the same goal".

 

Jordon Gerber, a young physicist that worked with Bob, once told me, "Jim, they don't know what makes an amp sound good".

 

I get phone calls from people telling stories about Bob helping them with their projects every week. Its amazing how much time Bob has taken to help people with their projects. He use to spend huge amounts of time helping people, judging from the volume of calls I get, asking "how is Bob"? "Bob helped me with my- (fill in the blank). Its hard for me to believe , honestly. 

 

 

Just yesterday a gentleman called me in reference to the latest on-line hack.

 

"Jim, when Bob helped me build my amps, he was running speakers with them, and had test equipment measuring the dynamics and what was actually going on driving speakers, not resistors".

 

Found that interesting. I will ask Bob about this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ar9Jim
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 A good many years ago, I remember an evaluation that my boss gave to me. One sentence stood out. "Greg always has a better way of doing things". It was meant in a negative way, but I smiled instead. No, I really don't have better way all the time, but special circumstances are not always covered by the many volumes of books that we had at our disposal.

  Bob wrote new books and that always raises the hair on the back of the neck of those who have stuck to traditional wisdom. I have noticed this in most every field, but most interestingly in the scientific community. Play by the (our) rules or you don't get to eat lunch with the rest of us.

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22 hours ago, Ar9Jim said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys. People that actually drive loudspeakers with our products and talk about it on-line is important. The resistor running crowd has been on quite a mission to discredit the great designers of the industry, with resistor running contest.

 

 His time is more precious than any damage these hacks can do to his reputation. 

 

 I'm not going into the internet BS with Bob, as much as these people would like to distract us from our mission with their attacks.

 

When the 275 attacks started, I got Bob involved and he responded with a true statement about Amirs test not representing the sound engineering and design of the amplifier, and that he stood by his product by offering returns if someone didn't like the sound of his amplifier. We let that run for over 30 days. We had a handful of returns. Of those returns, the majority later expressed regret, when trying competing products in the price range. 

 

Did the ASR review serve the consumer well? No. Did it damage our 275 sales, Yes it did.

 

Bob made some comments to me at that time.

 

1. When talking about load resister test Bob said, "I haven't designed amplifiers that way in over 20-25 years". Harry Pearson started that in his magazine the Absolute Sound long, long ago".

 

2. "Designing amplifiers to run resistors, and designing amplifiers to sound good, are not necessarily the same goal".

 

"Jim, when Bob helped me build my amps, he was running speakers with them, and had test equipment measuring the dynamics and what was actually going on driving speakers, not resistors".

 

 You know the way I see it is (and please forgive me if this sounds too critical)  you guys were caught with your pants down, you have egg on your face from this disastrous 275 review and really the only person / people to blame are the ones who came up with the 75 watts  20hz-20khz spec-- had the amp been correctly advertised at 75 watts at 1khz (which the resistor test proved) this review would not have created the fuss it has. I really don't see the logic in bashing the test itself as Carver was not singled out or the only one subjected to this type of testing all other manufacturers have to go through the same test. 

 

 All you can do is move forward hopefully learn from this experience know that everything you say and do will be carefully watched and scrutinized, there's nothing that can be done about the past and pretending to be a victim here is not helping your cause. The rules are the same for everybody, the 275 did not meet published specs nor was it supposed to whoever decided to advertise the amp that way is the one to blame, at least in my mind.

 

 Again, hopefully this is not taken the wrong way I love Carver products and yes that includes the 275 amplifier and I'll likely be one of the first buyers of the 285 amplifier when it becomes available I have not lost faith in the brand and I'm sure most Carver fans have not either. 

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Just pointing out that these products are not designed to be the best at running  resistors, but running loudspeakers, playing music. 

 

It seems to be widely assumed that all specs are quantified running a 8 or 4 ohm resistor, rather than 4 or 8 ohm nominal loudspeakers, having a widely varying impedance. Designing to be musical driving speaker load requirements makes more sense to me, but thats a personal choice. 

 

You can find amps that test great at running resistors, that sound like crap running speakers when making music. No victim here, other than people that buy based on resistor test, without hearing the musical performance running speakers. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ar9Jim
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13 minutes ago, Ar9Jim said:

Just pointing out that these products are not designed to be the best at running  resistors, but running loudspeakers, playing music. 

 

It seems to be widely assumed that all specs are quantified running a 8 or 4 ohm resistor, rather than 4 or 8 ohm nominal loudspeakers, having a widely varying impedance.

 

You can find amps that test great at running resistors, that sound like crap running speakers when making music. No victim here, other than people that buy based on resistor test, for judging the musical performance of a product when driving the variety of loads that speakers represent. 

 

 I totally understand that and agree but that does not change the fact that the 275 was rated to output 75 watts x2, 20hz to 20khz-- are you suggesting that the 275 can deliver that amount of power when connected to a loudspeaker playing music? If not then that published spec was bogus and rightly called out and the major source of negative press. Again not trying to be disrespectful or hurtful here thanks.

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I would suggest that an 8 ohm resistor running sine waves, and an 8 ohm speaker running music are not the same. 

 

I would rather listen to the design for dealing with dynamic speaker loads, than a steady resistor, 9 times out of 10.

 

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I stand by the fact that the latest hack by the same guy is garbage. I know I seem defensive to the latest hack. I am. The claims are irresponsible and lies, simple as that. The factory test those at at least 357 watts RMS into 8 ohms. People say what ever they want. Look at politics.

 

I really don't care what the hacks say, and it drives them a bit nuts and thats just fine. They act as though companies are supposed to be submissive to their attacks or you have a bad attitude. Its cool. I do have a bad attitude towards hacks. I'm not lying to anybody to stroke their ego's. The new products will be the best Bob has ever made. Will they attack those to? Oh god yes. It never ends. 

 

Its what they do. It gets clicks.

Edited by Ar9Jim
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Your post sparked my interest in ASR again.  I took a deep dive into both the 275 and the M-1.5 threads this morning.

 

The BS is so deep over there I had to take a shower.  

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The new products will conform to CE, and built to aerospace standards like those of my last aerospace manufacturing company, that we sold after 20 years to another company that moved it. 

Going forward. Hacks will always be there, always have been there, even in the 1970s.. Flame Linear?  How is hind sight on that one? 

 

One suggested that I have poor credibility due to the 275. Most of the commercial aircraft and a large part of the military uses components made at my former company. They may seriously want to consider my credibility next time the fly on an aircraft. With GE, Boeing, Airbus, Lockheed, my credibility is just fine. On-line hacks, I don't care about. 

 

For anyone is interested in the quality system model being used by our team, more can be read here. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS9100

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_0928.jpg

Edited by Ar9Jim
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On 8/15/2022 at 10:28 AM, Ar9Jim said:

I would suggest that an 8 ohm resistor running sine waves, and an 8 ohm speaker running music are not the same. 

 

I would rather listen to the design for dealing with dynamic speaker loads, than a steady resistor, 9 times out of 10.

 

Are you familiar with this company?

https://www.audiograph.se

Swedish company AudioGraph, the home of the PowerCube, continues to develop measurement tools for the audio industry. AudioGraph created the de-facto business standard 3-D measurement graphs – easy-to-read yet very powerful

I'm surprised this wasn't done a long time ago.

Edited by Yamacarver
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I've always found listening to resistors to be rather ... unsatisfying, to say the least.

 

Just remember, never feed the internet trolls - it makes them all wriggly and happy.  Ignoring them will make them go away - it make take time and tolerance from you, but if you don't satisfy their ego's.  Nothing hurts them more than silence, and they will go find someone else to plague if they don't get their "fix" from you.

 

As bad as it may seem, Jim, sadly, one of your jobs for Bob is to keep that crap away from him, and don't ever think you aren't doing it as well as it can possibly be done.

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This is from a conversation with my boss, Bob Carver. This was in reference to some internet posting of load resistor test being critical of our specifications, and why their measurements have little relevance describing the designs ability to produce world class sonics, while driving even difficult loudspeaker loads.

 

Please feel free to copy and paste.

 

A more in-depth version will be added to the new web site for all visitors to read.

 

Jim Clark

Director of Operations

Bob Carver Company

 

 

 

Bob Carver Amplifier Design Philosophy - What Sounds Good?

 

 

Since the early days, after earning my physics degrees, my approach to audio design has created controversy.

 

My unconventional approach has brought both criticism and accolades. World wide recognition for achieving musical excellence for my wonderful fans, while offering a more affordable product, compared to most other brands of comparable products, is a great pursuit. 

 

My amplifiers have often been smaller, lighter and less costly than others, while remaining powerful, musical, and accurate. These designs and their musical performance, compared to others are quite successful.

 

 What Makes An Amplifier Sound good?

 

Dynamic power, low distortion and wide frequency response. My tube amplifiers have high voltage (B+) and the power supplies have ability to ‘bounce' and increase voltage, closely tracking the musical load with very little distortion. This is an important key to a musical performance. 

 

 

Do You Design Amplifiers Using Load Resistors or Speakers?

 

Both. On my bench I start out with resistors, then I use different speakers, with a scope and voltmeter connected, while playing music and measuring the amp and speakers reacting together. The back EMF that is present makes speakers slightly easier to drive. Power response, by design, tapers below 80Hz, yet frequency response goes below 20Hz. 

 

My designs will drive difficult loudspeaker loads, playing music far better than the specifications listed, without clipping, and with lots of headroom available. 

 

These long held design targets have served the industry well. The designs have delivered excellent performing, highly musical products that more people could afford, without sacrificing the powerful and musical performance when powering loudspeakers. 

 

 

Stay tuned for more of my very latest designs and the on-line store coming soon.

 

Bye for now,

Bob

 

Edited by Ar9Jim
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The RAM 285 is available. The ISO compliant quality management system is producing a product of the highest quality. We are very happy and proud of the new product. Truly world class at a lowest price possible.

IMG_1832.png

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Beware of reviewers using the word "science", that when asked about the flaws in the traceability of their scientific test samples, have a response something like, 'I just test what people send me' as a default answer/excuse for their flawed premise of representing audio science. 

 

"Numbers are easy, great audio is not." Bob Carver.

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